Do Not Discount Your Miracle: The Redemptive Names

Sermon outline

We come into the Father's presence with thanksgiving and confidence, not entitlement, and appropriate the redemptive names of God and the benefits of the blood to our own lives, without discounting the miracles He gives.

1. "Our Father": Jesus is the key

   We come before the throne of grace to the Father, in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the key and the door opener into the presence of the Father, so it matters that we pray right.

   “Jesus is the key. He's the door opener.”

   • Matthew 6:9

2. "Hallowed be Thy name": leave entitlement outside

   This is where we enter His courts with thanksgiving and praise. We take out the idea that God owes us anything, because we come by grace, unmerited favour. He has not dealt with us according to our sins and has removed them as far as the east is from the west, so this part of prayer is not about yesterday's guilt but all about Him. Asking for forgiveness has its place later.

   “If you really want to touch the heart of God, you must be thankful, you must be grateful, you must be worshipful.”

   • Psalm 100:4-5
   • Psalm 103:8-12

3. Come as sons: forgiveness, righteousness and the Spirit

   The compound names of God correspond with five benefits of the New Covenant, set out in the notes. The first is the forgiveness of sins: Jehovah Tsidkenu, our righteousness, and Jehovah Mekaddeshkem, who sanctifies. We come boldly, respectfully but with confidence. The second is the fullness of the Holy Spirit: Jehovah Shalom, our peace, and Jehovah Shammah, who is always there, never on holiday and never burnt out.

   Illustration: Children don't crawl into their parents' house asking permission to enter. They barge in, and a young man goes straight to the fridge to see what there is to eat.

   “So in other words, everything is available to us, but we need to appropriate what it is.”

   • Hebrews 4:16

4. Soundness: Jehovah Rapha

   The third benefit is soundness, health and healing of body and mind. He has people at home lay hands on whoever is unwell, rebuke the sickness by name and thank God for the healing. He gives his own testimony: as a child he had use of only a small part of his lungs, from about eleven to seventeen he had eczema from the back of his head to his legs, and he had severe sinus, and God healed all of it.

   Illustration: He heard a Kenneth Hagin Sr. cassette in which Hagin, during a sinus attack that no medication touched on a five to seven hour drive, refused to wipe his nose and prayed in tongues and worshipped all the way, arriving healed. He thought, "Lord, if you could do it for that man, you can do it for me," took a drive and did the same, and was delivered.

   “Lord, if you could do it for that man, you can do it for me.”

5. Success: Jehovah Jireh, and do not discount your miracle

   The fourth benefit is success, freedom from the curse, because He is Jehovah Jireh, our provider. Whatever the size of the need, He provides, and we must not discount the way He provides.

   Illustration: An elderly pastor asked his grandmother, days before she died in her eighties, what her greatest miracle had been. When she and her husband were in ministry on a farm with no money and their last food, a troop of chickens came down the hill, laid an egg each in her empty pen and went back to a neighbour's farm, where those same chickens had never laid an egg. They kept coming for a whole year. "It may not be big for some people, but it was big for us."

   “Don't discount the miracles that God gives you. Don't discount how God provides for you.”

6. Security: Jehovah Nissi and Jehovah Rohi

   The fifth benefit is security, freedom from the fear of death, hell and the grave, because He is the Lord our banner and the Lord our shepherd. Fear and anxiety are the devil oppressing you and telling you that you are not good enough. Appropriate these names by confessing them out loud.

   “Any feeling of fear, anxiety, remember, that is the devil oppressing you.”

7. Five confessions by the blood

   From the notes he leads five redemptive confessions. By the blood we are redeemed, bought back from the marketplace and loosed from slavery, so the enemy has no right over us or our possessions. We are forgiven, the debt paid to a zero balance. We are cleansed now and continually as we walk in the light and in fellowship. We are justified, and God sees us through Jesus as if we never sinned, so we can cast down accusation. And we are sanctified, set apart for a godly purpose.

   “He doesn't look at you through the person that you are. He looks at you through the eyes of Jesus Christ.”

   • Ephesians 1:7
   • Colossians 1:13
   • 1 John 1:7
   • Romans 5:8-9
   • Hebrews 13:12

8. Appropriate it: it is a lifestyle

   The devil attacks every child of God; those who overcome stand on the word and these redemptive benefits. Those who do not see answers are not less spiritual; they just do not appropriate what is theirs, and they lie awake having conversations with the devil. Pastors have bad mornings too, so get before the Lord and find the refreshing. This is not a once-off event but a lifestyle.

   Illustration: He woke with a terrible headache and thought about breaking the fast for a day. Driving home from the school run, he put on "Show Me Your Face, Lord" and worshipped in the traffic without caring who saw, and by the time he got home the headache was gone.

   “It's not a once-off event, it's a lifestyle.”

In this message